Tag: Florida State football

Texas A&M might need to go all-in on Florida State transfer defensive end

Texas A&M HC Mike Elko might need to break the bank for one of the top pass rushers in the transfer portal

Texas A&M has brought in six players from the transfer portal this offseason, including former Nebraska tight end Nate Boerkircher, who will enhance the team’s blocking for both pass and run protection.

For those upset with the Aggies’ lack of success in landing defensive linemen from the portal, patience is key, as Coach Mike Elko and his staff signed defensive end Nic Scourton and several other defenders in early January last offseason, which could be the case this offseason over the next couple of weeks.

However, it’s fair to be worried that Elko and his staff have likely been outbid concerning several defensive end transfer options, including former Purdue Will Heldt, who committed to Clemson on Thursday afternoon. Heldt’s visit to Texas A&M was seemingly successful, but this move made sense given the Tiger’s tracker record of developing defensive linemen.

Nevertheless, plenty of DL options are available in the portal, including former Florida State defensive end Patrick Payton, looking for a new home to play his final collegiate season.

Through three seasons, Payton was the 2022 ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year, recording 109 tackles, 16 sacks, 32 tackles for loss, three forced fumbles, and 12 pass deflections.

If healthy, Payton would be an immediate plug-and-play option to replace Nic Scourton’s lost production while taking the pressure off incoming senior DL Cashius Howell.

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Michigan State football lands commitment from Florida State DT transfer

FSU DT transfer chooses to commit to Michigan State

Michigan State is beefing up in the trenches, landing a commitment from a prospect that is sure to make an immediate impact on the defensive line.

Grady Kelly has committed to play for Michigan State.

Kelly is a two time transfer, starting his career at Colorado State before moving to Florida State, where he played for a season. In his college career, he has accumulated 98 tackles, 13 tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks.

The 6-foot-2, 290 pound defensive tackle will bring one year of eligibility with him, and will most likely slot in as a starter next to Alex VanSumeren. He is a native of Navarre, Florida.

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Former Husker coach to join Florida State staff

A former Husker coach will join Tony White in Tallahassee.

A former member of Nebraska’s coaching staff is heading to Tallahassee. The Florida State Seminoles announced Saturday that they hired former Nebraska safeties coach Evan Cooper.

Cooper resigned from the Huskers before training camp commenced in July. He now returns to coaching after a five-month absence, joining former Husker defensive coordinator Tony White and former defensive line coach Terrance Knighton in Tallahassee.

Cooper spent one season at Nebraska and 11 consecutive under Matt Rhule before resigning. In his lone season with the Huskers, Cooper put together a tough secondary.

The secondary recorded seven interceptions and 30 pass breakups in 2023, and the Blackshirts’ pass defense limited opponents to 6.1 yards per attempt, which ranked ninth nationally in the same year. Nebraska also kept seven of 12 opponents to less than 200 passing yards, including two under 100 yards.

Cooper joins a Florida State team that allowed 7.41 passing yards per attempt and only four interceptions. The Seminoles kept teams under 200 passing yards and one team under a hundred. The most passing yards the team allowed occurred in its win over California, where it surrendered 303 passing yards.

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The 2024 Georgia team has shades of 2014 FSU

There’s a lot of similarities between the 2024 Georgia Bulldogs and 2014 Florida State Seminoles

The 2024 edition of the Georgia Bulldogs reminds me of the 2014 Florida State Seminoles.

Both teams entered the season with high expectations following outstanding seasons. Both Florida State and Georgia returned veteran quarterbacks and had supremely talented teams, but something just wasn’t right.

Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston had a mistake-filled 2014 campaign after winning a Heisman and national title in 2013. Winston threw for 3,907 passing yards, 25 touchdowns and 18 interceptions as FSU went miraculously went 12-0 in the regular season. Winston led the Seminoles on countless clutch drives in the second half.

Georgia quarterback Carson Beck has had a similar campaign in 2024. He entered the season as a Heisman favorite, but has struggled to take care of the ball at times. Beck has 3,429 passing yards for 28 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Beck has played better in the second half of almost every game this season.

Florida State played a very challenging schedule, but always emerged on top in the regular season. The Seminoles went an impressive 7-0 in one-score games including a 37-35 ACC championship win over Georgia Tech.

Speaking of Georgia Tech, Georgia also beat the Yellow Jackets with a two-point win in 2024.

Florida State went on to have 11 players drafted in the 2015 NFL draft. I would expect a similar number of Bulldogs to go in the 2025 NFL draft (Georgia has seven players ranked in the top 100).

In 2014, FSU’s averaged 33.7 points per game and allowed 25.6 points per game. This season, Georgia is posting similar numbers. The Bulldogs are scoring 34.1 points per game and allow 20.5 points per game.

A future first-round pick patrolled the Seminoles’ secondary in Jalen Ramsey. Georgia safety Malaki Starks is also expected to be drafted in the first round.

Florida State’s magic ran out in the College Football Playoff semifinals in a 59-20 loss to the Oregon Ducks. The Seminoles coughed up five turnovers against Oregon and were outscored 41-7 in the second half of one of the biggest blowouts in the playoff era.

Will Georgia’s inconsistent play catch up to the Bulldogs like it did for 2014 Florida State? Well, Georgia already has suffered two losses on the Dawgs’ extremely challenging schedule. At times the wheels fell off in UGA’s road losses to Alabama and Ole Miss. However, one thing this Georgia teams has showed is that it won’t quit no matter what the circumstances are.

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Georgia plays against Texas in the SEC championship on Dec. 7. Win or lose, it is hard to envision this Georgia team putting all the pieces together for three or four consecutive games in the playoff to win a national title.

Paul Finebaum calls Florida State ‘the biggest falloff in college football history’ this season

Finebaum rips Florida State for its historic fall off.

Florida State’s 2024 season has been a steep and painful decline from its championship-winning form in 2023.

The Seminoles, once ranked in the preseason top 10, fell to 1-9 after a staggering 52-3 loss to Notre Dame. Coach Mike Norvell voiced his disappointment, acknowledging how far the team had fallen from expectations: “This is not the result we expected… it’s a season full of results that make us sick.” With only two games left, the best they can achieve is a three-win season—a low they haven’t reached since 1975 in a full season.

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum called this fall “the biggest falloff in college football history,” noting how extraordinary it is for a top-10 team to spiral this dramatically. Florida State’s downturn contrasts even more sharply given that Michigan, the defending national champion, has struggled too but is managing a 5-5 record despite losing head coach Jim Harbaugh to the NFL. Finebaum stressed that Norvell’s performance fell far below expectations: “There’s no excuse for that… he’s lost all the goodwill he had from a year ago.”

In a bid to turn things around, Norvell took drastic measures, firing three key staff members: offensive coordinator Alex Atkins, defensive coordinator Adam Fuller, and wide receivers coach Ron Dugans. This shake-up underscores his intent to reconfigure the program for the future. Following a bye week, Florida State faces Charleston Southern and then hosts rival Florida in hopes of salvaging something positive to close out an otherwise bitter season.

Florida State finally avoids a disaster by turning a QB sneak into a 42-yard gain

Florida State avoided its season of doom completely coming off the rails with this wild QB sneak.

Florida State fans likely breathed a sigh of relief after a seemingly routine quarterback sneak nearly unraveled in the worst way possible.

FSU’s season has been so bad that nothing is seemingly safe. Just last week, they executed what might have been the ugliest field goal I’ve ever seen. And this week, they nearly botched a quarterback sneak. I shouldn’t be surprised, but yet, somehow, I still am.

Early in the second quarter against Miami, FSU wanted to go for it on fourth-and-one. The exchange between the center and quarterback Luke Kromenhoek was bobbled, but somehow — football gods were seemingly showing mercy — Kromenhoek squeezed out of the pile of players and hit a 42-yard scamper. INCREDIBLE.

(Feature image courtesy of ESPN)

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2025 4-star WR and Florida State commit will attend Texas A&M vs. LSU

Add another key 2025 prospect to Texas A&M’s long visitors list for Saturday’s LSU matchup

Texas A&M’s critical Week 9 home matchup vs. 8th-ranked LSU also poses another opportunity to host recruiting prospects from the 2025, 2026, and 2027 recruiting classes inside what will be a blackout in a close-to-sold-out Kyle Field.

Needing to add at least one or two more wide receiver prospects to join 4-star Kelshaun Johnson and 3-star Tristan Norman in the cycle, Rival recruiting insider Landyn Rosow has gotten word that 2025 4-star WR CJ Wiley, who is currently committed to Florida State, will also make his way to College Station on Saturday night.

Standing at 6-4 and nearly 200 pounds, Wiley is coincidentally compared to current Texas A&M junior wide receiver Noah Thomas due to both players’ length and large catch radius while possessing the athleticism and downfield speed to produce explosive plays in the passing game.

While Florida State continues to struggle this season, it’s not surprising that current commits are at least looking at their options before signing day. Listed on 247Sports 2025 “Freaks list,” Wiley is coming off his best season during his 2023 junior campaign, recording 1,473 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns and a 21.7 yard per reception mark.

According to 247Sports, Wiley is currently positioned as the 134th-ranked prospect in the 2025 class, the 18th-ranked wide receiver prospect, and the 19th-ranked prospect in Georgia.

Texas A&M will host LSU at home on Saturday, Oct. 26th, at 6:30 p.m. CT. The game will air on ABC.

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Florida State’s lost season was encapsulated by a disastrous failed field goal

Things are just going from bad to worse for Florida State.

It’s already a lost season for Florida State.

After going 13-0 to start last season and being snubbed in the most controversial decision of the College Football Playoff era, it’s been a brutal start with a new-look roster. FSU is 1-5 on the year and trying to arrest the slide on the road against Duke, and early in the game, things were pretty rough.

Attempting a field goal in the first quarter trying to expand a 3-0 lead, about everything that could have gone wrong did. The snap was a bit high, and the holder didn’t give Florida State kicker Ryan Fitzgerald a chance as the ball went into the back of an offensive lineman.

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The Blue Devils proceeded to take advantage of the momentum and jump out to a 17-3 lead after a pick-six and a fumble that led to a touchdown.

It’s the perfect encapsulation of a season that has gone much worse than any FSU fan expected before the season, and it seems things aren’t getting better anytime soon.

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Former Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher rants about ‘utterly ridiculous’ CFB ‘cheating’

“We need revenue sharing. We need a salary cap for all schools… The tampering that other schools do with players, is utterly ridiculous.”

The media tour of former Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher has been non-stop this season and it continued last week with a rant about cheating in college football.

“College football is — I complain about it, it’s still the greatest game. As much as I love NFL, and I’m crazy about it, and I respect it, but college football, man, you don’t know — 18, 22 teams, you don’t know what you’re going to get. I mean, it’s still so — I love college basketball, all those things, I love all college sports, but college football man, we need a commissioner. We need revenue sharing. We need a salary cap, for all schools, and if you’re caught — and the other part of this, the tampering that other schools do with players, is utterly ridiculous,” Fisher proclaimed on Oct. 1. “I mean, the big schools are going and getting players constantly from other schools, and it’s being done illegally. Those guys are developing players, and all of a sudden their guys, you know, that team shouldn’t have an advantage, financially, to be able to take care of a guy that another school doesn’t, and it’s wrong.

“I’ve had multiple discussions with players I’ve had, teams calling them and offering money. ‘I’ve got NIL, I’ve got this offer here, I’ve got this,’ and you’ve got to sit down with them, their parents and go through it all. Power 4, within our own league, with the things that go on. I thought, really, when NIL came in, we thought it would be good, because some of this — there were teams that were doing NIL before NIL was popular, OK? I thought NIL would at least make it fair, take the cheating out of ball. It’s made it worse.”

Fisher appears on Off Campus with EJ Manuel and Jacob Hester every Tuesday from 3-6 p.m. on SiriusXM’s College Sports channel.

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Instant Analysis: Clemson wins fourth straight, but missed opportunities stand out

What you need to know from Clemson’s win over Florida State.

The Clemson Tigers won their fourth straight game Saturday night by defeating the Florida State Seminoles, 29-13, in Tallahassee.

Dabo Swinney passed Bobby Bowden for most wins as head coach at an ACC program — on a field named after the legendary Seminoles coach and personal friend to Swinney. Clemson’s victory was the 174th of Swinney’s career. It was also the Tigers’ eighth win against FSU in the series’ last nine meetings.

The fact that Swinney and Clemson would win the game was pretty much cemented from the moment the Tigers (4-1) took a 17-0 lead facing an anemic Florida State (1-5) offense after the first quarter.

Quarterback Cade Klubnik led two impressive first-quarter touchdown drives. He hit Antonio Williams for an incredible 57-yard touchdown catch that made it 10-0, then hit freshman T.J. Moore for a 23-yard touchdown with just 2 seconds left in the opening quarter.

But the Tigers failed to finish drives for the rest of the night. They settled for seven straight field goal attempts in the red zone from kicker Nolan Hauser, who made five of them with two being blocked.

The inability to finish drives was a sore enough point for Swinney, who lamented as much to ESPN sideline reporter Quint Kessenich at the start of the fourth quarter.

Clemson would finish the night by dominating Florida State in everything that ultimately mattered to the game’s outcome. The Tigers out-gained the ‘Noles in total yards, 500 to 250; indeed, 52 of FSU’s yards came on a final, stat-padding possession. The Tigers’ defense allowed just 22 rushing yards all night.

Klubnik was 19-of-33 for 235 yards through the air and tailback Phil Mafah added 154 yards on the ground on 22 carries (6.2 AVG).

Clemson also committed fewer penalties (three) than Florida State (seven), though the game was relatively laundry-free.

The Tigers managed to get a road win, and that’s more than several Top 25 teams with hopes of reaching the College Football Playoff — Alabama,  Tennessee, Missouri, USC and Michigan — can say for Week 6. But the Tigers also never flashed a true killer instinct.

When Seminoles quarterback Brock Glenn led a 15-play, 74-yard scoring drive that ended with a 12-yard touchdown pass to Ja’Khi Douglas with 9:36 still to play in regulation, Florida State was a 2-point conversion shy of making it a one-score game.

That never happened, and Clemson would tack on two more field goals to allow itself some breathing room. Speaking of field goals, the two blocked kicks came on weak protection from the left side of the offensive line. That’s something else the Tigers will need to clean up.

Going forward, the Tigers may not be able to win games by committing some of these mistakes. That’s especially true when the competition stiffens in November and December.

Swinney said this week that good teams win at home and great teams win on the road. To that end, Clemson is now 1-0 on the road in ACC play. But greatness also comes in the form of being able to bury teams that simply don’t match the Tigers’ skill set.

NEXT UP

Clemson will face Wake Forest in Winston-Salem next Saturday at noon ET. The game will be televised on ESPN.

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